Hi all

Welcome to 3reef...8)

 

Those "flowery things" are small feather dusters. They shouldn't require any maintenance, as they are filter feeders, and they "filter" their food out of the water. Since the tank is established, and not new, they should be fine. The rest look like they may be a little stressed from the move, nothing more.

What are your water parameters? Those would tell you if there are any big problems. Salinity, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, PH, Calcium, Magnesium, Alkalinity (dKH), and Phosphate. Salinity should be around 1.023 (1.021-1.025 should be acceptable ranges but I would shoot for 1.023-1.025), Ammonia (0ppm), Nitrite (0ppm), Nitrate (best if 10ppm or less), PH (8.0-8.4 is good), Calcium (400-480 is good), Magnesium (1250-1400 is good), dKH (8-12 is good), and Phosphate (hopefully it's zero, but more than zero is "ok" for right now but needs to be taken care of or you will get algae). Ammonia and Nitrite may not be zero right now since you moved this tank, but I personally wouldn't let them get above 0.25ppm without doing a water change (that's just my opinion, others may disagree). In other words, if it hits 0.5ppm on your testing, I would do a partial water change to try to lower it.

Almost forgot: What's the temp? I prefer to keep my 2 tanks between 79-81 all year round, but I would say 78-82 is good, and if it's within that range, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Welcome to 3Reef>>>>>>

 

thanks for all the welcomes! ok here were my parameters. I did a 1 gal exchange after I took them...

temp 80.9 it starts the am at 78 but goes up with the lights
phos- 0.6 ( how do you lower it?)
salinity 0.1235 (hydrometer)
ammonia 0.25
nitrate 5.0
nitrite 0.1
pH 8.0
alk low
Ca I have a question it never turned "blue" it was the same purpleish from 19 - 25 drops so I gave up, should I have kept going? 285 or more!
I don't have a Mg test kit.

I also took the mesh filter out, it wasn't there to start so I thought maybe that was ammonia problem...

 

I am far from an expert but it should turn blue, I would keep going. There are others far more knowlegeable than I though.

 

Salinity of 0.1235? Typo?

1.0235 (maybe?)

Phosphate lowering: You could try phosban. Or some other easy options:

Fish & Aquarium Supplies: Phosphate Control

For a better solution, you might want to think about a phosban reactor:

Aquarium Algae & Phosphate Control: PhosBan Reactor 150 and Parts from Two Little Fishies

Those two links are for info only. You may be able to find cheaper prices elsewhere, but it was easiest to link to those two pages so you could see some options.

Alkalinity:

I use Kent Superbuffer dKH to keep it around 9-10.

You should get a better test kit for it; I use API test kits for everything except Magnesium (I don't think API makes a Mg test kit so I use a Red Sea test kit for that). The API test kit will give you numerical values (ex: 9,10,11), so that would be better than the low, good, high that you are probably seeing now.

As far as Magnesium goes:

You need to test for it as Magnesium, Alkalinity, and Calcium are intertwined (so to speak). Before you try to adjust Ca or Alk, you need to set the Mg.

Your Calcium test kit: What brand is it? What is the 285? PPM? Or something else? If it's PPM, then 285 is low. However, if your ALk is low, that will affect your Calcium. And why it seems out of whack.


What concerns me is your low ALK. That could cause large PH swings (especially at night; could drop to a dangerously low value), leading to stress on the tank inhabitants. Also, watch the Ammonia and Nitrite. They aren't bad (considering you recently moved the tank) but could be a problem if they increase. Do you have anything to neutralize Ammonia/Nitrite (besides water changes which is still a good way to lower them)? I use Prime. It makes the Ammonia non-toxic, as well as Nitrite, without affecting your biological filter (Live rock). That's according to the manufacturer's label. Can help out in an emergency. I also use it when I add top off water, as it neutralizes any heavy metals in the water (I don't have an RO/DI unit yet; since my tap water tests zero for Nitrates and Phosphate I feel I can save up for it and make it my next major purchase).

I would test daily (or at least every other day) for Ammonia and Nitrite until the levels go back down to zero.

 

First thing I would do is use some elbow grease and clean coraline off front and sides of tank....

Enjoy!

 

Thats another question, the area that is bad is where the LR is too close to the glass to reach the glass, I didn't know if I should keep disturbing the coral or not, plus there is no room in my tank to put it somewhere else so what do I do with it when I need to clean? You should have seen it when it came to me... I had to scrub it to be able to see the coral!!!

 

Howdy! and welcome to 3Reef!
As far is your zoa's they look pretty good in the few last pics, but on the first 2 they might be trying to tell you that they aren't happy, you might want to do some water changes then move them from place to place till you find their happy spot, after you start scrapping some of your coralline, that should give you a head start on the ammonia & phosphates, coralline depletes your magnesium stability, which can cause swings on your alkalinity and calcium